


being what you claim to be, doing what you say you'll do

by OldMagpie (MagpieMorality)



Category: A Dangerous Fortune (2016), Wolf (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Begins just after the opening Mickey scene of Part 2, Canon-Typical Violence, Compliant with A Dangerous Fortune Canon, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, In the sense that Mickey treats sex as transactional and exchanges it for favours, M/M, The Great Kenzarelli Multiverse, Unnamed Child from A Dangerous Fortune, not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28717614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieMorality/pseuds/OldMagpie
Summary: Mickey takes a punch to the face and retreats to a secret home to lick his wounds in private and peace. He only makes it as far as the doorstep.Majid nearly trips over a body on that same doorstep and thendoestrip straight into Mickey's life, entirely at the whims of fate.
Relationships: Mickey Miranda/Majid Zamari
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	being what you claim to be, doing what you say you'll do

**Author's Note:**

> AKA this author finally _actually_ watched A Dangerous Fortune and fell _more_ in love with Mickey and his absolutely stunning characterisation by one Mr. Marinelli. Hello microexpressions. We're just ignoring that ending and veering off at the start of part 2 because I say so, alright?

Mickey takes the punch to the face without any kind of grace whatsoever. It hurts. It really bloody hurts and he moans softly, unable to even  _ try _ to stop the sting of tears in his eyes at the sharp, blooming pain spreading out from his nose. He falls as well, with just as little grace, and rolls over to protect his front and his stomach in case the men decide to start kicking.

They do, damn his luck, but blessedly it doesn't last for long. Soon they retreat, hurling curses and a few bits of dirt at his back before running away and leaving him in the mud on the street floor of Whitechapel.

In that moment Mickey realises just how much he hates London. It has brought nothing but misery and malady to his life - his father might be a fan of the money to be extorted here but Mickey has found it not worth the effort. The weather is cold and the people are colder and he… Well he doesn't want to go  _ home _ , precisely, but he certainly doesn't want to stay where he is.

In the wake of the attack he gathers his wits, stumbling upright and trying to make his way back somewhere for the night. He can't go to any of the grand houses he frequents, not with his face in the state it is. The only place remotely nearby apart from  those are the unpleasant rooms he'd rented upon first arriving back in the city several years past, used only to take home the odd working girl or boy, or as a den to crawl into for some privacy after a full weekend of parties.

Or to lick his wounds after a conversation with his father.

It's as good a heading as any in the end, so Mickey makes for it, brushing off the one lone man who dares enquire after his health when he sags briefly into a wall to take a break before continuing. His whole body feels tired, despite the worst of it having only been aimed towards his head. Mickey shakes it once to clear it, but that hurts even more, causing a little whimper to drop from his lips.

His building looms out of the darkness of the night a wonderfully short time later and Mickey thanks his lucky stars for how close by he'd been in the end. He snorts -  _ ow ow ow _ \- on a mental thank you to his attackers for the dignity of jumping him so close to home. How very gentlemanly of them.

On the doorstep Mickey moves his face wrong and his nose twinges. As he winces in pain his fingers twitch. "Damn," he swears with feeling, dropping his keys and fumbling to pick them up. Bending over proves to be the final straw for his pounding head and Mickey crumples with a groan on the doorstep to the building, curling into the corner with a soft sob, clutching his bloodied and bruised face gingerly with trembling hands and closing his eyes while stars dance and the world spins. For all his morbid humour he is undeniably shaken by the experience, down to his bones. His father has never sent  _ other men _ after him before, preferring to do the job himself - but then Mickey  _ has _ been rather slow to get their pursuits actively working, hasn't he? Perhaps if he'd been faster it would have negated the fury.

He sighs. It hurts.  _ Ow _ .

When Majid lopes up the street to his temporary hovel of a home after a late match, he doesn't immediately clock the huddled figure on the floor. In fact; it's not until he's hopped up the stairs to the door and is almost on top of the thing that he notices, nearly stumbling over the poor soul, twin yelps sounding out in the quiet of night.

Well, as quiet as this end of London ever gets, even after dark.

"Hello?" Majid asks carefully, nudging the lump with his foot. If it's someone drunk or dangerous he'd rather avoid the hassle. He only has so much capacity for such things and he's wasted all of them on tonight's mess of a fight, patience gone. "Hello?"

"What? Never seen a man on the floor before?" a voice replies, accented and slurred and shaky. Majid frowns in alarm, well-acquainted with the sound of a man in pain, but the tone doesn't actually negate any of his worries from before - he knows better than to be fooled into letting his guard down simply because someone _seems_ to be no threat. 

"Not one on my doorstep. If that's all you are, may I get past?"

"I'm not in the way, go right ahead."

"Very well."

Majid shrugs off his concern forcefully and unlocks the door, pushing it open to discover - and he thinks the man also discovers it at the same time - that the man had been leaning somewhat against it. He tips over with a surprised cry, hand flying out from under his coat. Majid crouches quickly, instinct to help overriding his hard-learned wariness before he can lock it away again, and finds himself face to face with the strangest eyes he's ever seen in his life; piercing and pale and intense beyond belief, but shuttered with pain and something lost and desperate. The eyes of a man like Majid had once been, before he'd fled the continent; caught up in something terrible and unable to flee, wondering every moment if it was the last or if there would be hope around the next corner. If hope could even exist in the depths he'd sunk to.

"Let me," he murmurs in the end, hardly needing to decide at all. The sharp voice in his head cultivated through painful experience warns him he had promised himself to remain out of this sort of business, for his own safety. Majid acknowledges it and his hand twitches, but he cannot draw it back now. The man eyes his extended hand, and takes it with almost as much hesitance as Majid had offered it, soft gloves sliding into Majid's rougher grip. He helps the man upright, which takes more effort than he likes, and discovers one source of the man's plight to be the very recent and very unpleasant broken nose, still sluggishly oozing blood out over his face. "That looks like it hurt."

"It did," the man replies, a slight upturn to his lips that fades quickly. He squints at Majid like he's surprised by his own flippant response. "I live upstairs. Sometimes. If you get me to number seven I will be fine."

"Never had a head wound before, have you," Majid guesses wryly. He holds the man a little closer and takes in the rest of him, his fancy clothes and nice hair, his beautifully shaven and crystal clear skin, apart from the beauty mark on his jaw and the bruises and blood. Of course he hasn't; he doesn't have to say no out loud for Majid to know it to be true. It is a surprise then, when he just raises a sardonic eyebrow and proves Majid wrong. _Nevertheless_. "You shouldn't be alone, certainly not in sleep."

"Not in sleep?" the man repeats, blinking at him, and yes - even if he hasn't got the type of head wound that has carried men off in sleep in the past - Majid would very much like to keep an eye on him. A rich man dying in the building is bad for the whole community, especially the poorer off like Majid. He would like  _ not _ to be sent back to where the officials will decide is his rightful home so soon after being able to leave it.

"Come along. Do you have a name?" Majid asks.

"Miranda. Mickey," is the reply, as Miranda stumbles over his own feet and ends up clinging to Majid with quite a considerable amount of force. They make it up the stairs together slowly, stopping on the third floor outside of Majid's room, number six. He props Miranda up against the wall to unlock the door and then levers him inside, helping him over to the table. There's no other furniture in the room apart from a  very unpleasant armchair lurking in front of the fireplace that had come with the room, and looks as though it will either disintegrate under the next opponent to approach it or murder them outright with some foul disease.

Miranda sits, slumped heavily at the table, while Majid searches his bare cupboards for some iodine and a cloth that isn't too dirty. He wipes the bloody man clean and then checks his face over for anything else, up into his hairline, cleaning away the mud from the side he must have been lying on at some point. Probably after having been punched, if logic is anything to go by. There are a few more bruises here and there and the way Miranda holds himself implies perhaps a few hidden under his clothes as well, but the nose is clearly the biggest issue. Majid sets the cloth aside when all is done and eyes Miranda. He's paler than before and swaying, despite trying gamely to keep his eyes open. Majid stands up and rounds the table towards him.

"Well then, let's get you to bed, I don't know about you but-"

"Why are you helping me?" Miranda interrupts him.

"What?"

"Why are you helping me? We don't know each other. We aren't friends. I've never seen you before in my life. Is it philanthropy? Altruism? Or are you looking for a score?"

"That's- no, I wanted to help."

Miranda blinks at him skeptically and Majid sighs, helping him up without resistance. Miranda moves easier across the floor than he had up the stairs, but he winces when he moves his head too fast and puts a lot of his weight onto Majid. His neck has probably borne some of the brunt of the attack and punch as well, maybe the impact on the floor. He'll be sore as all hell tomorrow - just like Majid. They can ache and groan together.

Well, obviously not, but it's a funny passing thought nonetheless.

"I was concerned about the man lying on the floor at my front door," Majid mutters, aiming them towards the bed at the side of the room.

"But-"

"And that was because I know injuries, and they bloody hurt. Boxer," he adds after Mickey's wary squint. "But also, you're right, it was for my own gain. I like the quiet life, living here. I hardly want to live in a place renowned for being the house where Mickey Miranda died mysteriously in the night now, do I?"

Miranda huffs quietly, through his open mouth instead of his nose, which is a smart decision and probably also a conscious one. He shrugs a shoulder, peeling his coat off while Majid keeps him carefully balanced, and looks at the bed.

"I suppose not," he agrees, eyeing it. "Where will you sleep?"

"We'll share," Majid says immediately, half-daring the man to protest. Miranda snaps to look at him and scoffs, a surprised and disbelieving sound that Majid doesn't entirely like but does entirely understand. "What? You'll accept my help but not my company?"

"It would be entirely improper! I don't even know  your name."

"Majid Zamari. There, now you know. I want to make sure you don't die, Mr. Miranda, but I am not willing to compromise my sleep for it. I have slept in a bed with my brothers for many years, it won't disturb my sensibilities."

_How about yours?_ His raised eyebrows ask, and Miranda looks back at him silently. He seems to cycle through a whole range of reactions and emotions before his lips quirk in a silent expression that looks like he's saying _why not?_ "I suppose I can manage," he agrees out loud as well, sitting gingerly on the bed to slowly unlace his boots, which look like they must have cost more than Majid's monthly rent.

"Why on earth are you living here?" Majid wonders, moving away to shutter the lights for the night.

"It's private. You aren't the only one to like the quiet of it. But I don't live here often, as it stands, it is more of an escape than a home."

"Ah. Well I'm sorry to have interrupted your escape with my…"

"Rescue?"

"If you're willing to be so kind about it then yes, rescue. I suppose if you live here, at least you're aware of how bad the bed you'll be lying on in a moment is going to be. I haven't managed to sort out any sort of fix for the springs and I'm always so full of bruises I hardly notice anymore I must say. Someone of your…"

"Softness?"

" _ Lifestyle _ , might not be so lucky."

Miranda proves him wrong in his assumptions by lying down on the bed and squirming around until he finds a position that makes him sigh quietly and close his eyes. There's still a pinch of pain wrinkling his forehead but he seems content enough. Majid just stares for a while, long enough for Miranda to open an eye and peer up at him. "Well? This was your idea, Zamari."

"Yes, yes." Majid hurries to join him, but when he moves to nudge Miranda over the man just grumbles and shifts closer to the edge, leaving the space behind him open. They both are equally surprised when Majid climbs over and gets comfortable at his back, startled perhaps by the hard proof of their unusual actions. It's out of the blue and out of character (for them both though neither knows it of the other just yet) and yet there they are; sharing a bed.

"Thank you again, Zamari."

"Sleep well, Mr. Miranda. I hope you don't die by the time morning comes."

"Why thank you. What a comforting wish."

Majid smiles to himself, slightly frowning at the same time, confused by the odd turn of events for the night but hardly about to challenge them. Miranda is tense for a while longer, but by the time Majid's breathing starts to even out the man is all but a little lump of relaxed warmth against his chest.

Mickey wonders where he is when he wakes up. He knows from the burst of pain in his face that he went to sleep after a beating, but there’s a body at his back he doesn’t remember, and he very rarely goes straight to someone's bed with bruises on his face-

An arm clamps tighter around his waist and for a moment he panics, wondering if he’s going to have to escape something unpleasant. The body is unmistakably male, and the room looks much like his own, although significantly more bare. 

And then it comes back in a dreamy haze - his meeting with Zamari on the doorstep; the efficient but careful way the man had cleaned him up; the order to stay. In the light of day, with his thoughts rising from their muddle into clarity, he feels quite differently about the whole situation. Zamari can’t have been telling the truth last night, and even if he was? The lure of money has always been a siren song to men in the gutter, and Mickey would know, with the amount of times he’s nearly made his acquaintance with that same gutter the past. Even if Zamari's morals are as fast as he promises, there’s no harm in offering him something in return before he can change his mind and decide to ask... 

With that in mind Mickey shuffles carefully around, guiding the still sleeping man in the bed with him over onto his back. He moves slowly, running a hand down a nicely muscular chest to his shorts. No one-piece for this man. Which makes it all the easier to sneak a hand inside, reaching down to tease at his cock. 

“What-?” Zamari murmurs, voice scratchy from sleep. He catches Mickey’s wrist and holds it still, blinking blearily at him before Mickey can get any further than a brush of fingers. “Mr. Miranda. What are you doing?”

“Expressing my gratitude, and call me Mickey,” he murmurs back, biting his lip. Zamari follows the movement, which had been somewhat intended to be a test of if the man is even interested in such things, and is therefore a fairly strong _yes_. “For your help, before I leave you be.”

“No, Mir- Mickey,” Zamari drops his head back with a frustrated sigh. “I told you, I didn’t do it for payment, of this kind or otherwise.”

“But you _must_ want-”

Zamari's growl cuts Mickey off, but he isn’t cowed, only narrows his eyes and falls into silence. Zamari moves around him to sit up and they face each other on the bed, the sheets pooling at their waists. “I don’t want trouble. Dead men are trouble. Dead _rich_ men ten times so. You can leave now if you like, without debt or obligation - I won’t stop you and I won’t extort you, you hear? I’m simply not interested in such things.”

_You’d be the first_ , Mickey thinks to himself, but he nods. It’s a little disheartening that his offer isn’t to be accepted, either as a returned interest or accepted reimbursement for his time and effort, but Mickey won’t complain unduly. He’s a little tired of these sorts of quick engagements anyway, after all his years of steady work in, on and under London’s most dysfunctional family. Since the wedding however he’s been able to gain at least a little distance, and his recent trip back to Cordova had given him a break from the whole affair that he hadn’t realised he’d been craving. 

“Very well,” he agrees, climbing out of the bed carefully and redressing. Everything feels stiff and sore, but he can work through it well enough. Only his nose proves truly problematic, and he wastes time trying not to touch or twitch it when it throbs. It’s probably broken, a real shame. Mickey has steadfastly avoided that exact eventuality for many years, too reliant on his looks for his role in his father’s empire to be able to survive such a drastic change. Hopefully there’s a fix, or a way to live around the problem now. It might not even be that bad in the end. He’ll need a doctor’s help there though. 

He will go and find one today, he decides, standing up and stopping in the middle of the room. “Ah, thank you. You have my gratitude, Mr. Zamari, for your generosity and advice.” 

“Freely given, and I suppose under the circumstances I should tell you to call me Majid,” the man on the bed mumbles, waving a hand around vaguely. He has already buried himself back in the blankets. “Although, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope we do not meet again, if these are the circumstances.”

“The feeling is mutual. If there is a next time, feel free to drop me on the floor of my own room. I give you permission.”

“Number seven, yes. Good day,” Majid says around a yawn, face disappearing into the pillow. Mickey sees the shadows of bruises on his face in the early light, a sure sign that the man is probably suffering his own aches, that had gone untended the night before. A small pang of sympathy and guilt sprints up Mickey’s spine, but he leaves it behind as he goes, closing the door quietly and stepping out to find the nearest doctor who can take care of his moneymaker. 

(If there’s a small voice in his head that prays for his nose to be irredeemably ruined then he won’t admit to it. He has a job to do and it’s one he’s good at. Whether or not he  _ wants _ to be doing it is entirely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.)

They don’t meet again for quite some time, lives revolving one around the other without touching. It’s not a surprise; they live in entirely different circles, although even in a large city such as London it is startling easy to find yourself face to face with someone you wouldn’t expect on any given day. 

As it is, Majid next sets eyes on Mickey on a particularly dark, overcast day once they've both almost passed from the other's mind. The rain has been settled in and comfortable in its heavy clouds above the city for almost a week. Majid is walking back from the factory from his shift when Mickey falls out of a small, quiet house and straight into Majid’s chest. He jolts back quickly, staring at him with those same big eyes with that same slightly lost, cornered-animal edge to them. 

“Maj- Mr. Zamari,” he says, sounding surprised. “What are you doing here?”

'Here' is the arse-end of London, not the sort of place someone who dresses like Mickey dresses would ever be found voluntarily before dark. Although Majid could say the same about the building they both apparently inhabit, albeit Mickey less frequently. 

“Passing through, this isn’t far from home. I’m a lot more intrigued as to  _ your _ answer to that question. This isn’t your usual neighbourhood.” He looks over Mickey’s shoulder with interest at the house he’d just left. “Illegitimate family?”

It’s not meant with any judgement, but Mickey bristles nonetheless and Majid quickly holds his hands up. “No,” Mickey grinds out, head up haughtily. It twists his striking face unpleasantly into something thoroughly hateful and Majid abruptly forms the opinion that he should never have to look like that again. At least his nose seems to be largely healed and unharmed, despite the amount of blood there had been that night. “Just, a personal visit to- someone I value.” 

Majid’s eyebrows rise and before he can imagine all sorts of people to fit that description he spots a little face in the window behind Mickey. The boy ducks down quickly when he spots Majid looking and no other faces appear, young or otherwise. The thought makes Majid’s head spin a little, another facet of the mystery man he’d only very briefly known, adding a dimension to his character he hadn’t predicted. “I see,” Majid says softly, and Mickey turns around with a little frown to see what had changed his tone. The boy peeks up again at the wrong moment and darts away quickly when Mickey curses. 

“You- one second,” he mutters, hurrying back into the house. There are low voices, urgent but not angry, and then Mickey appears again, pulling his coat tightly around himself and avoiding Majid’s eyes. “I must be going.”

“You’re not what I expected,” Majid says, the words blurting out before he can hold them in. Mickey pauses, half a step away. 

“I wasn’t aware we knew each other well enough to expect anything at all.”

“I suppose not. Even so.”

They stand in the cold street, people rushing around them, and look at each other, frozen in place. When Mickey cuts his eyes away and they widen in alarm, Majid feels the change in the atmosphere between them like a blow to the back of his knees, nearly staggering from it. Mickey’s face has turned fearful and angry however, and his eyes dart around for an escape. Despite the increasingly loud voice in his head screaming at him yet again not to get involved, Majid clocks the shadow of a cart parked near the buildings and moves Mickey to it, muscling him fairly forcefully behind it to lean up against the wall, using the half-cover of the cart and his stature - and whipping Mickey’s hat off to hide between them out of sight - to keep him hidden or at least stop him standing out like a sore thumb on first glance. Mickey fortunately figures out what is happening quickly enough to turn his face into Majid's jaw and away from the street, allowing himself to be covered from view. Whatever or whoever he’s hiding from, Majid resolves not to ask. He has left crime behind and he very much wants that to be an end to its presence in his life entirely. But despite that, it is so far beyond his ability to ignore the call of a person in need of help as to be laughable. Even now, even with everything in his experience to prove such kind acts meaningless and more often than not; dangerous. 

“You do not have to do this,” Mickey mutters softly, hands carefully tucked into his own belly to avoid touching Majid. Their proximity makes it difficult, as does the angle, but they manage. “I really would prefer not to owe you a second time.”

“I told you already, I do not offer such things in order to win debts from you. I hardly want to involve myself in your mess of affairs, Mickey.”

“Then why have you? Twice now. Once was at least a strange occurrence, twice is heading swiftly towards a pattern.”

Majid sighs heavily. “Only because you insist on being in trouble when we meet. Are you ever  _ not _ ?”

The haunted, hunted expression that flits over Mickey’s face then, quickly chased away by the same haughtiness as before, makes Majid’s blood run cold. “Is it truly that bad?” the boxer asks. “Can you not simply… Run away?”

“Run away!” Mickey snorts derisively. “You speak of things you could not possibly comprehend, _Mr. Zamari_. My business is not yours, and life is seldom so uncomplicated.”

“As a matter of fact I speak from experience.” Why Majid declares that is beyond him. Perhaps it’s the desperate edge still visible in Mickey’s body and the wideness of his eyes, and the conviction in Majid’s heart that  _ he _ managed to find a way, so he really ought to share that advice with someone so recognisably in the same place as he’d been not that long ago, ought he not? It feels necessary. Maybe that’s the feeling that religious converts experience that always seems to send them to Majid’s door to try to save his soul… The certainty that you’ve found the right path, the freedom and relief of it and the need to share that same feeling with others. 

“Then I congratulate you on your cowardice,” Mickey hisses back. “But I cannot make such selfish, rash decisions. Stay out of it, Majid.”

“Well!” he barks an unimpressed laugh. “That’s lovely, isn’t it.”

“I never asked for your help!”

“I never needed you to. But a simple bit of polite courtesy wouldn’t hurt. I’m not dirt, Mickey. Nor am I a coward. I’m a survivor, and I am not going to stand for your rudeness just because you’re scared and happy to lash out.”

“I’m not- that’s not what this is!” Mickey protests. 

Majid laughs. He looks around and finds no one out of the ordinary in the street, noting the relief on Mickey’s face when he chances his own glance out. The threat must have passed. _Well then_. “If you believe that then you’re a fool, and a pathetic one, to deny the truth to _yourself_. But very well, I’ll leave, and if I see you again best of luck to you - I won’t help.”

“That’s- you are infuriating!” 

“And I’m right. Now  _ good day _ , _Mr. Miranda_.” 

And with a tip of an imaginary hat, shoving Mickey’s actual one back at him, he spins and storms off.

### 

Mickey does everything he can to put their latest encounter out of his mind for good. He stays away from the little house for a week before tentatively venturing out to check on the young boy within, and finally puts his plans into motion to get the little thing out of his horrid situation. The father has returned from his all-too-brief sojourn in jail and is drunk as all hell when Mickey returns one final night, presses a full purse into his hands, and escapes quickly with the boy, Jasper. Whatever the drunkard thinks Mickey wants with his son, he clearly doesn’t care enough to refuse the payment or fight very hard. 

There’s only one logical place to take Jasper until Mickey can find him a nice home, and as awful as they are at least his room in Whitechapel are hidden and private. Hardly a good place for a young boy, but they won’t have to be there for very long. Mickey hasn’t the faintest idea about how to look after a child, and his life and work are hardly conducive to having Jasper around. He shudders to think about the boy getting caught up in the life Mickey leads.

_Not a chance._

At the building, they tiptoe together up the stairs one after the other. Mickey ruefully notes that their shared stealthiness almost certainly has the same origin, and of course - of  _ course _ \- they run into Majid on the third floor landing. 

Life can hardly bear to give Mickey a break, can it?

“What in the seven hells are you doing?” Majid hisses, staring at them. He looms a little too much and Jasper pales, pressing himself flat back against Mickey’s legs. Mickey wishes he had the paternal confidence to rest a protective hand lightly on his shoulder, but instead just glares at Majid until the boxer backs off. 

“Once again, I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he retorts quietly, all too aware that they are in the communal stairwell and that voices carry through these rickety walls. “If you’ll excuse us.” Majid allows them to slip past and Mickey nods Jasper towards the correct door. But then Majid, after muttering something to himself in a language Mickey doesn’t speak and probably out of the same bizarre need to meddle that has landed him in Mickey's affairs twice already, follows them. 

Jasper quietly follows Mickey's murmured instructions to go into the bedroom and try to get some sleep while Mickey fends off the irate interloper. Majid’s expression is thunderous but complicated when Mickey clicks the tiny room's door shut and turns to him, after promising the boy he’ll just be downstairs.

“You-” 

“Not here!” Mickey hisses, glancing behind. 

Majid lets out a harsh huff of breath that’s more a hiss than a sigh, and then stalks away, leading them back down to his own apartment. When they get inside there’s only a heartbeat before he wraps his long fingers in Mickey's jacket and pushes him hard against the wall by the door, snarling right into his face. “That’s a  _ child _ , Miranda!” 

“I noticed!” Mickey snaps back in a harsh whisper. They’re keeping their voices down, but barely, voices tight with the effort. “I’m not hurting him!”

“You don’t think I know what kind of life you lead? And you’re bringing a  _ child _ into that?!”

“No!”

“'No'? Then why are you hiding a boy in your secret rooms barely a week after I last saw you jumping at shadows in the street? How callous are you, how selfish, to put him in danger like that?!”

“Stop  _ assuming _ things!” Mickey says, half a demand but really more of a desperate plea. His knees sag a little and his voice breaks ever so slightly, but that’s all it takes for Majid to soften in alarm and surprise. Mickey closes his eyes and shakes his head, letting it hang. “You don’t know me, you don’t," he says quickly, unable to forestall the manic words that rip themselves right out of his mouth. "I wouldn’t hurt him like that, ever. I  _ know _ he would be in danger - that’s why he’s here instead of in any of my other lodgings in London! Tomorrow I will work on getting him out, away, somewhere safe and restful. Trust me when I say he was worse off where he was. Trust me! _Please_.”

Majid looks at him, piercing eyes scouring down to his soul and Mickey thinks  _ fuck it, look at me and see _ . He leans heavily back on the wall and glares weakly, balefully up at Majid while Majid sucks the corner of his lip into his mouth and looks to be considering an apology. Well, more fool him - Mickey doesn’t want one. He looks away quickly and shifts in Majid's hold. “So that’s that. Can I go back upstairs now?” he says in a mutinous mutter, before Majid can speak.

It is a little irritating that his voice is so quiet and small but it does have the added effect of cowing Majid further, twisting guilt into the lines of his face. The boxer lets go of him entirely and waves a hand towards the door, but then steps in the way before Mickey can do more than push himself upright. 

“Wait,” he says softly. “How will you find somewhere for him? How will you take care of him in the meantime?”

“I suppose I shall find out as it happens,” Mickey admits slowly, jaw tightening. _He hadn't thought of that_.

“I could- he’s about the same age as- I’m offering my help. If you need it. An extra pair of hands, or eyes, whatever it is you might require.”

“But why?”

“He’s a child, and you are in no fit state to take care of one.”  Mickey bristles at that, chest twinging with hurt, but it’s not as though it’s  _ untrue _ . Majid continues, explaining patiently. “You certainly can’t be here the whole time while you’re chasing down somewhere to send him, and he can’t go with you, if you want him to stay free of whatever mess you’re mixed up in. You know... You could find a way to go with him, take him and run-”

“No. Please stop bringing that up.”

Majid holds his hands up, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Very well. But the offer remains. I won’t be fighting until the weekend, he can stay with me-” they both glance around the room and Majid shifts his weight from foot to foot, looking embarrassed. “Alright, he would be better off in your rooms, but I could stay with him there, if you didn’t oppose the idea too strongly?”

Could Mickey really just… say yes? 

“Yes,” he tests, finding it easier to fit his jaw around than he’d expected. How about another? “Thank you.” Equally easy. Who could have known? Majid softens even further and the hard edges of him drop away, leaving the same man Mickey vaguely remembers from their first meeting, who had plucked him up and taken care of him for no reason other than that he'd needed the help. Majid’s eyes are dark, warm pools when Mickey meets them, and Mickey swallows thickly, nodding once and reaching for the door. 

About three steps later he realises Majid is walking with him again, and when he turns back with a raised eyebrow the boxer just shrugs. “You should introduce us if we’re to spend any time together. And give me a spare key.”

Mickey makes the best decision of his life to date; he nods. They head together up into the room, where Mickey introduces Majid and Jasper to one another, the boy unsurprisingly still wide awake and cautiously curious. They’re firm friends within half an hour, playing some game with their hands that makes Jasper grin until he’s finally yawning, relaxed enough to allow the exhaustion in. The raw expression on Majid’s face when he tucks the boy under the blankets while Mickey watches from the doorway speaks of a sorrow Mickey doesn’t know about yet, and the terse gratitude of his nod before leaving does more to warm Mickey up with pride than any time his father has ever clapped a hand on him in praise instead of punishment. 

True to his word, Majid happily races up the stairs the next morning when Mickey calls on him despite the early hour, greeting Jasper with a bright hello and bursting into chatter with him. Mickey feels the familiar coiling burn of jealousy stirring in his chest, but forces himself to enjoy the sound for the joy it is instead, putting away the blankets he’d slept under on the sofa, cleaning up a little. There’s no food, but Majid seems to have pre-empted that issue and reveals a pocket full of eggs to cook in Mickey’s ancient skillet. The whole scene is shockingly domestic, itching at Mickey’s skin under his clothes with discomfort, so he escapes with a short goodbye to them both and flees into the city to ensure he is seen far away from the boy he’s hiding, while trying to find the right connections he’ll need to get Jasper out. 

The Pilasters are rich and well-known enough to have many such people in their social network, in the end. It only takes a few nights of working on both Lord and Lady Shortridge (and having to move a little more swiftly, clumsy in his approaches, bending and allowing a little more than he would normally care to) before they’re enamoured enough to promise him the world, and Jasper is due to leave for the countryside the very next day with a new name and a future ready and waiting. 

Majid doesn’t comment on his state when he returns with the good news, but his eyes track Mickey through the room without fail, reading the things Mickey isn’t saying out loud in his body instead. It should be unsettling, how revealing that gaze feels, but instead Mickey feels slightly flustered and hotly embarrassed. He knows Majid is judging him for every compromise he’s ever made, probably wondering how low his personal morals must be to take the actions he has. But they both know that this is best for Jasper, and so it can’t be anything but the right choice. 

That doesn’t stop the boxer from catching him by the elbow after they’ve said goodnight to Jasper, halting him from going to the sofa to sleep and guiding him down to his own room again for another private discussion. Mickey tenses in anticipation but does nothing to resist, resigned to the prospect of having to hear Majid's no-doubt entirely precise accusations. He would rather have this done and over with, if it must happen at all.

“Are you going to say anything?” Mickey challenges, when they’ve been sitting at Majid’s table for several minutes in silence. Majid just leans back in his chair and keeps looking at him, and then pushes up from his seat with a curse, the scrape of the chair legs over the floor a sudden harsh and grating sound that makes Mickey jump. “Are you… Angry with me?” he asks, once his heart has settled enough for his voice to be mostly steady, and Majid is over at the kitchen counter, facing away.

“With you? No,” Majid mutters, setting his kettle on to boil water. Making tea, perhaps? Mickey hopes so, he would quite like a warm mug to hold. His hands threaten to shake if he stops clasping them tightly together in his lap. “Not exactly.”

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“It’s-” Majid sighs, shaking his head. “Nevermind.”

“You brought me here to say something. Say it,” Mickey snaps, frantic and tired and nervous and ashamed and all manner of things that mix like a bad concoction in his gut. Majid's shoulders tense and his voice is tight when he responds but he seems to be working hard to keep any anger at bay.

“I brought you here because you’re so on edge I thought you might shatter. I brought you here because I’m worried you… I'm worried you hurt yourself, for this.”

“Oh.”

The quiet that falls isn’t peaceful, but full of answers awaited and not yet given. 

Majid clears his throat and turns around to stare at him. “So did you? I don’t want to know what you did, exactly, but are you hurt? I have some ointments, bandages, a little whiskey for pain if it’s bad-”

“No! Goodness, no. Nothing like that,” Mickey promises him quickly. He aches a little, perhaps, but nothing requiring medical attention or that Majid could help with. It is uncomfortable to have been sitting on the wooden chair for so long but he’s more than used to dealing with simple discomfort by now, albeit usually from his father’s cruel hands rather than the less cruel touches of an overzealous lover. He wrinkles his nose, lifting his hands to rake back through his hair and neaten it, dropping them together on the table and looking up. “I’m quite alright. If I’m honest-” _and when did_ _ that _ _start being the case between them?_ “- I was mostly concerned about- well, about your opinion of me.”

Behind them the kettle begins to boil, a soft whistle starting up. Majid ignores it, staring at Mickey with wide eyes. It isn’t until Mickey shifts nervously under his gaze and starts to draw his hands back, that he jolts back into action, turning to pour the hot water into the pot, throwing in a little sachet. It's a strange mix that smells Mediterranean, perhaps some mint and other herbs in there. Majid lets it steep for a while and pours them two cups while Mickey sits frozen in place. They land on the table with muted clinks, steaming hot, and Mickey inhales deeply, bowing over it on the table with a sigh. It's soothing, enough to coax him to speak up. “I thought you’d be pleased I was doing this, to get Jasper away from me.”

“ _ Mickey _ .” 

Gosh.

No one has ever, in all the years of his deplorable excuse for a life, said Mickey’s name that way. Exasperation and frustration and somehow also concern and care and familiarity. He looks up from the tea, breath held in case what he sees doesn’t match the tone. But Majid’s expression, twisted with weary worry, is just as monumentally, madly _sweet_. He just stands there, next to the table, and with a single glance churns Mickey up inside. Mickey looks back down with a blush he wants to blame on the steam of the tea. “Mickey. Look at me, please.”

“I don’t think I can," Mickey whispers.

“... Alright. Then just know that I wouldn’t- it could never please me for you to hurt yourself, especially not for something you think I want. Even if it's for Jasper, even then Mickey. I was wrong to assume before - that you’d harm him - but I think I was closer to the truth than I realised. I just should have been concerned about you harming _yourself_ __f_ or _ him. Am I wrong?”

“You could stand to assume a little less. Anyway, I’m not hurt.”

“But that doesn’t mean you’re alright. Look, I won’t ask. But do you need anything? Anything at all, no matter how small. I offered my help after all.”

“With Jasper.”

“To you, you infuriating man!” 

“Majid, please.” He avoids Majid's eyes, grateful for the tea to have something to focus on. Majid grasps the back of his chair, knuckles paling from the force of it when Mickey sneaks a glance up. His blood cools with impending dread, but he reminds himself sternly that Majid has been nothing but kind, and willing to discuss and listen before raising his hands. The night that Mickey had arrived with Jasper notwithstanding, for obvious reasons such as the fact that Majid quite literally thought Mickey had kidnapped a child for his own selfish reasons. 

“I didn’t- I said- I  _ promised _ myself I wouldn’t get involved in anything like this again, anything like _you_. But here you are with your big, bleeding heart and those damn eyes and I can’t help myself. You tried not to inconvenience me the first night and then you tried to thank me and then you _rescue a child_ and do everything you can to give him a bright future! But you’re in some sort of trouble and you show up with injuries and flinch from the wrong people and you look like hell today, even though you helped that boy. I’m terrified of what that means, Mickey, but I’m even more terrified that you have that impact on me, after such a short time in my life. Perhaps I’m simply cursed to be forever pulled into the darkness under the cities I live in, but how can I refuse when it’s your eyes doing the pulling?”

Mickey's shoulders rise higher and higher throughout the speech, and his eyes prick. It should be wonderful, liberating, touching, but all he can hear is the undercurrent of resignation in Majid's voice. He really has been cursed, and his curse is reaching out and infecting this man, who has clearly dragged himself out of hell and wished never to go back. Not until he saw Mickey down there batting his eyelashes. It isn't _fair_. Mickey hadn't asked for this, hadn't wanted this one! He had never intended to turn Majid into just another person he'll break. 

“Majid, no," he begs, building volume gradually but not lifting his head. "Don’t do this. Stay far away, please. Help me with Jasper, I- I need to get him to the station in the morning, but then we go our separate ways, and you stay out of it. Even if I wanted you involved, you shouldn’t give up what you've built here. Don't you dare cast it all away now you're free.”

“But you are not,” Majid replies simply. “Mickey.”

“ _No._ " The word is ripped from his like a cry. "We are not talking about this further. Thank you for the tea,” Mickey says, wishing he could stay and drink it, but this whole business has been a terrible idea, right from the very start. What, had he somehow thought he could pretend away his life in some little bubble of niceness where the rest of the world simply doesn't exist? “I would greatly appreciate your help in taking Jasper where he needs to be tomorrow, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“You don’t have to leave-”

“I rather think I do. It’s been a dream, Majid, nothing more. I can’t leave my life, and I won’t bring you into it.”

Mickey makes the mistake of looking over at Majid and feels the weight of his disappointment like a pillory around his neck. Majid is the one to look down this time, and nods at the table, saying nothing more and allowing Mickey the chance to escape. 

They exchange only brief greetings when Mickey drops a quiet Jasper off with Majid the next morning, passing over the address to get to and then reaching out to squeeze Jasper awkwardly on the shoulder one last time before he leaves them both behind without another word, hoping he has done all that needs to be done to secure Jasper's happiness, or the potential thereof. He’s noticeably off his game when he gets to dinner that evening and says a few too many wrong things in front of the wrong business associates. His father's men will be back soon enough, for that, but things are speeding up and the end is in sight and when they do come there’s no chance to lick his wounds in his secret home, even if he was inclined to return. 

Not that that stops him from dreaming about the pressure and warmth and comfort of having a body pressed up against his back in the dark of night. He catches himself wishing his bed was against the wall just so he could lean on it and pretend, and gives up on sleep entirely. The rest of the night passes in silent, tumultuous contemplation of the dark ceiling. 

In the days that follow Jasper’s departure, Majid curses everything in his body that had conspired to let his words tumble out the way they had in his kitchen that night. He doesn’t know how he feels about Mickey, beyond the desperate need to protect and help him, but he knows he made a mistake in being too ardent about it. Mickey is the sort of creature to lash out when vulnerable, and also - as Majid now knows for certain - the sort of person to want to help anyone he can. He showed his care with Jasper, but more strikingly shows it now by staying far away from Majid, respecting his initial wishes to stay apart and uninvolved in the seedy operations he must be dealing in. Majid has to be somewhat grateful, because despite his declaration he truly does not want to return to that life, and yet... In a way he resents the choice being taken from him. But Mickey had been adamant, and Majid resolves to try and get over him and his whole captivating self once he has given himself some time to privately grieve the loss.

It comes as somewhat of a surprise then, when Mickey is in the alley beside the house one night when Majid returns after winning his latest title match, hopped up on the fight-high and ready to crash. The energy coursing through him helps him react quickly when Mickey steps towards him from the darkness, and then crumples, knees giving out, eyes fluttering.

“Hell, Mickey!” Majid hisses, catching him and staggering them over to the front steps. “We need to get you inside. What happened?”

“She wanted me to… But I couldn’t. I couldn’t, in the end, and they’ll find out, they’ll all find out, I think I’m done for Majid, I think I'm finally going to find myself on the wrong end of a gun, if my father doesn't send me six feet under first-”

“Inside, now,” Majid decides, helping Mickey up the stairs and into his room, rather than struggling up the extra flights to get to Mickey’s. He’s shaking like a leaf, a manic light in his eyes, and he just stares when Majid sits him on the bed and starts to make them both some tea, the same one Mickey had never touched before. He stares and stares and then at some unknown signal, bends over with his face in his hands and starts to laugh. It turns to sobbing predictably quickly, but Majid focuses on their drinks, letting him get it out until he can place a mug beside him on the little table by the bed, and then tug him sideways into his arms. Mickey clings on, fingers digging hard into Majid’s arm, but the boxer doesn’t mind. He remembers the turmoil of his last days before managing to escape his own terrible situation, and he hopes that this is a sign of a chapter ending. 

Mickey calms down after a while, but makes no move to shift away from Majid’s arms. He only moves when Majid nudges him, prodding him into the bed, back to the wall it's pressed against, gripping his tea tightly after it’s handed to him. “Try some, you’ll like it,” Majid promises quietly, sitting perpendicular to him and helping him out of his boots so he can dig his thumbs into his feet until he sighs and relaxes in increments. The tea really does seem to help - Mickey’s eyes flutter closed and then open with a softness to them that Majid, now apparently an expert on one Mickey Miranda, knows is a peace he doesn’t often feel. “I won’t ask, but if you need to tell…?” The offer is out there. 

The sound of quiet sips as Mickey drinks the hot tea too soon are the only response, and Majid lets the quiet hang, moving from Mickey’s feet to his ankles and then up his calves, easing the tension out like he would for himself after a fight. By the time he wraps his warm palms over Mickey’s knees the tea is long since finished and taken away, and the man himself is drooping dangerously to the side, eyes all but closed. 

It makes perfect sense to slide an arm around Mickey’s back and guide him gently to the mattress, slipping in beside him without bothering to undress or clean up, trying to hold him as close as possible without trapping him in place. 

“Majid?” comes a murmur in the darkness. Majid hums, slipping his arm around Mickey’s waist and threading their fingers together on the bed in front of them. “I don’t want to go back.”

“Alright.”

“I don’t- I don’t want to go back ever again.”

“Alright Mickey, then you won’t.”

“But what if they come to get me?”

“Then I’ll help you run.”

“Will you?”

“Mhm, I will.”

“Why?” 

Ah, the thousand guinea question. Majid smiles. “Because I want to. And because you deserve it.”

“Oh. Majid?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mickey Miranda. I hope you sleep well.”

“Mm. I will try.”

Fortune favours them; they slip into a dreamless sleep together, to remain undisturbed until the morning comes. 

The early light of pre-dawn finds Mickey up and sitting on the edge of the bed, holding the wood of the frame so tightly Majid is worried he’ll crack it - old and badly made as it is. 

“Mickey?” he says softly, still apparently loud enough to make the other man startle, turning to him with wide eyes. It’s barely dawn, but he can see Mickey quiet clearly, the curtains on the main windows barely hung. He normally wakes at first light anyway, to train and keep on routine. 

“Go back to sleep, Majid,” Mickey says in a soft voice, weighty with emotion. “I’ll see you some other time perhaps.”

That sets off alarm bells immediately and Majid sits up, catching Mickey by the hip and shuffling to curl around his back and up at his side, able to watch his face while remaining on the bed. “Mickey? Talk to me. What are you planning?”

“Nothing. I- nothing. I just need to go.”

“Go where.”

“Go home, Majid, I need to go home.”

“Upstairs?”

“No! Not upstairs! Back to my father, back to my  _ life _ .”

Majid feels unbelievably tense, but he manages to keep his hum noncommittal. Mickey turns to him, face to face, and frowns. “What?”

“Do you, really? Because last night Mickey, you were not well. You were almost feverish with the need to run away. Don’t you remember that?”

Mickey swallows, telling Majid that yes, he does. “But that was the heat of the moment, late at night,” he whispers fearfully. “A spur of the moment emotion. I shouldn’t let my life be ruled by such capricious things.”

“Mickey, you were  _ terrified _ . You cried yourself nearly to sleep. And I- I don’t even know why. Will you tell me?”

He’s never seen anyone blanch so quickly and completely from mere words. Mickey stands up, launching off from the bed like a bird taking flight. He crosses half the room in that one quick sweep of momentum, finishing the path to the window and leaning on the sill to look out at the alley below. Majid heaves himself up out of bed and goes to join him, standing close by his side and chancing a hand on his upper back. Mickey glances at him in the dim window, and then down. “My father has designs… Delusions of grandeur perhaps. He found a way to make them a reality though, with my help, which largely involved me, ah, hurting the right people in some very specific ways. There’s this woman…” 

There’s a horrible swooping in Majid’s stomach that only gets worse when Mickey swallows thickly and continues, the story eked out in thin, halting threads. A woman, a man, a wife. Money - so much money, demanded and desired by a father that had only by a chance of geography not been the direct hand that had instigated the circumstances of their first unfortunate meeting. The same father that had unintentionally inspired Mickey’s altruism with Jasper, and is closing in on his goals, as the family Mickey is installed with closes around  _ him _ . 

By the time Mickey has caught up to the previous day, to the man taking over the bank and the news from on high that he has to make his move or else, and the demands of the awful woman regarding her daughter-in-law? Majid has drawn close around him, bracketing him and holding on, swaying them gently in place. The details are different but the feeling is - exactly as he’d unfortunately predicted way back when - just the same as his own before he’d run from the country and ended up landing arse-first in London. He wants to offer that solution out again, but Mickey hasn’t yet quite taken the step from terrified misery at his own impending doom, free of denial - or perhaps resignation - at last, to starting to look for a way out. 

So Majid just holds him while words keep spilling out, bubbling up from Mickey’s chest in awful waves that sound like they must have long been drowning him inside. Majid can barely hear them by the end, muffled as they are in the rumpled collar of his sweater, choked on tears, and it’s a wonder either of them can bear to stand close like this because he definitely isn’t smelling very fresh after the fight and a full night in bed.

Mickey doesn’t seem to mind. If anything he presses closer, his fingers like claws in the sides of the sweater, clinging on for dear life. He’s trailed off into a little chant of ‘ _ I can’t I can’t I can’t _ ’, and Majid hushes him gently, stroking a hand down the back of his head to his back. “Hey,” the boxer murmurs, lifting the other hand to cradle the back of Mickey's head. “Look at me.”

He does, wild eyes finding something to settle on and grasp onto in Majid’s face. “That’s better. You’re not going anywhere. Not back to them, not ever again, and not into another problem like it if I have any say. Will you let me help you?”

“Yes,” Mickey agrees immediately, voice shot. “Please. I would like that.”

“So would I, sweetheart,” Majid agrees roughly, holding Mickey’s gaze evenly. “First, we’ll get you to your own bed-”

“No, I want to stay here.”

“I- well, alright. If that’s what you desire?” Mickey nods, expression still on the edge of distraught, but steeled with stubbornness. “Then we’ll get you into _my_ bed, and back to sleep. When we next wake you and I will do absolutely nothing and go absolutely nowhere, and then we will discuss options after lunch. Whatever you want to do, you can take your pick.”

“What if I want to go back?" 

"Please-" Majid says immediately, cutting himself off. Mickey just nods slowly, pensive.

"What if I want to run then, like you said?” He asks, whispering so quietly it’s hard to hear him over the thumping of Majid’s own heart. He smiles, cupping Mickey’s face tenderly. 

“Then it’s a good thing I keep in shape, mm?”

“You-” Mickey inhales sharply, and then hugs him fiercely, stronger than his soft frame implies. “You are a singular, extraordinary man, Majid. How I found you in all of London I will never know.”

From right by his shoulder Majid just laughs softly. “I think you’ve forgotten - I did the finding, not you. Or rather, you landed on my doorstep and I avoided standing on you.”

“Either way God was on my side that night. I don’t know where I’d be without you. Even in the smallest of ways you seem to have changed my life these past weeks.”

“As you have mine,” Majid promises him. “Now come, to bed. There are still more hours left we can sleep in.”

They climb back in together, but there’s a closeness there that wasn’t there before. Mickey stays as firmly in contact as he can from toe to top, and Majid is much the same, hands drifting ever back to Mickey when they have to pull away. He directs Mickey down onto his chest this time and drops a slow kiss to his forehead, drawing a soft sigh from his companion. “Sleep well, Mickey.”

Mickey is already asleep by the time he looks down, face soft and slack and more peaceful than Majid has ever seen it. He falls asleep himself, with a smile.

The morning light is soft and quiet as it steals into the room. They wake for the second time with equally soft and quiet smiles, facing each other on the bed and talking without words and without movement until Mickey shifts and brings their lips into contact, with absolutely no fanfare, simply because it feels right. It’s only the first of many kisses, and barely lasts a second, but it is honest and simple and sweet and Mickey will treasure it as all precious, rare things are to be treasured, until he finally truly believes that there is no finite source to these gems of memories. And even then he will treasure it as the first honest kiss of his life. 

Peaceful togetherness bleeds into murmuring and creating tentative dreams for the future as Majid had promised, both silently refusing to leave the haven of the lumpy, too-small bed until the very latest moment, when both of their stomachs are rumbling loudly and insistently. From there they discover that there is such comfort in being able and welcome to touch and hold at any opportunity, chaste as it may be. Mickey finds his fingers enjoy the rough rasp of Majid’s short hair and beard. Majid seems to like Mickey's own hair just as much, carding through it while they sit as close as possible on the two kitchen chairs they've dragged side by side, Mickey resting his forehead on Majid’s shoulder, sated and replete and hopeful. 

They leave London for Spain in the new year, looking for somewhere unknown and different and open to all possibilities. In Spain they hear of Malta in whispers on the right tongues, and in Malta they settle, enough of the local languages between them with Majid’s Arabic and the Dutch of the frequent trading ships that are in port, and Mickey’s Spanish and Italian to draw on. In Malta they build a life and a home London had teased at but never quite managed to provide. They write to Jasper, and he writes back, and Mickey cries when he reads the carefully scrawled words and hears for certain that his actions had had at least one positive impact on the world. Majid writes to another young man that Mickey will eventually come to know as his younger brother - far away in distance but close to Majid's heart - and cries just as hard when he receives a reply of his own. It is written in a significantly less fluid hand but still stark and real on the page, lines of Arabic that Mickey doesn’t ask him to translate, satisfied to hold his hand across the table and wait for Majid to ask for what he needs. They don’t write to anyone else, and they don’t listen for word of London, or South America, or Holland. 

In Malta they learn how to share space and futures, and also a bed, with only ever equal heat and hunger, returning again and again to honesty between them. 

And in Malta, they live as happily ever after as they can, and deserve. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> For the fam <3


End file.
